3io National Life and Character 



is perfectly true that the laissez-faire doctrine of the 

 old school of political economists is receiving less 

 and less favor; but, after all, if we look at events 

 historically, we see that every race, as it has grown 

 to civilized greatness, has used the power of the 

 State more and more. A great State can-ifot rely 

 on mere unrestricted individualism, any more than it 

 can afford to crush out all individualism. Within 

 limits, the mercilessness of private commercial war- 

 fare must be curbed as we have curbed the individ- 

 ual's right of private war power. It was not un- 

 til the power of the State had become great in Eng- 

 land, and until the lawless individualism of feudal' 

 times had vanished, that the English people began 

 that career of greatness which has put them on a 

 level with the Greeks in point of intellectual achieve- 

 ment, and with the Romans in point of that material 

 success which is measured by extension through set- 

 tlement, by conquest, by triumphant warcraft and 

 statecraft. As for Mr. Pearson's belief that we 

 now see a decline in speculative thought and in me- 

 chanical invention, all that can be said is that the 

 facts do not bear him out. 



There is one side to this stationary state theory 

 which Mr. Pearson scarcely seems to touch. He 

 points out with emphasis the fact, which most people 

 are prone to deny, that the higher orders of every 

 society tend to die out; that there is a tendency, 

 on the whole, for both lower classes and lower 

 civilizations to increase faster than the higher. 

 Taken in the rough, his position on this point is 



